-Innovative Program Expands to Help Grow Local and Cooperative Economies. Builds Code for Cooperation.-

New York, NY – The Sarapis Foundation is pleased to announce their newest collaboration, the expansion of an open source mutual credit platform, OSCurrency, and network with Vermont Resilience Lab.

OSCurrency (short for “open source currency”) is a user-driven, open source platform to help place-based communities build their own customizable economic networks using mutual credit cooperative transactions and connect into a wider community of peer networks for mutual benefit.

Vermont Resilience Lab, a Burlington, Vermont based consultancy and project management company, uses the OSCurrency software to run their innovative Marketplace program, a business to business trade networks available to over 1000 businesses through partnership agreements with Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility and Vermont Fresh Network. The new partnership will allow Sarapis and Vermont Resilience Lab to mutually develop software that can be used by business trade networks and community based time banks.

“Instead of communities paying for proprietary software solutions, we can invest together in the development of open source solutions produced by new economy networks. If we can align the development interests of collaborative economy actors, then we can build the type of open source solutions that can give the entire cooperative sector consistent, reliable system upgrades. Open source mutual credit systems are the missing link that enable us to move value amongst the emergent nodes in the collaborative economy network — allowing us to transcend the restrictions of artificial scarcity enforced by national monetary policies. As the collaborative economy and open-source movements integrate, a world of opportunities opens up.“ said Devin Balkind, Executive Director of the Sarapis Foundation.

The project relaunch includes an update of oscurrency.org, social media platforms, communication channels (including slack), and a transparent budgeting and crowdfunding process through the Open Collective Platform. The relaunch aims to not only create a stable and updated code base, but grow collaborations among communities using the software, and is a place where creative new economy projects and businesses can find support and resources.

“We are excited to partner with the Sarapis Foundation which has supported the open source and new economy movements since their beginnings. We have long shared a common vision of bringing local control to local economies through open source software, mutual credit networks, cooperatives, and strong business models rooted in partnerships. ” said Amy Kirschner, Founder of Vermont Resilience Lab and the Marketplace, “As the Marketplace grows into the next iteration, the soon-to-be Cooperative Trade Exchange of New England, having a developer community to support our business model is key. We’re proud to be a part of a movement that builds ‘Code for Cooperation’.”

The mission of the new OSCurrency network is to build and maintain a transparent and user-friendly platform for mutual credit marketplaces to be used by communities and cooperatives as a means of payment and way to aggregate capital and resources to build local economies in resource-constrained environments. OSCurrency is always free and is located at: https://github.com/oscurrency/oscurrency

“The production of full featured mutual credit systems will democratize and expand the already established reciprocal trade industry, which is responsible for facilitating over $12 billion worth of trade that simply wouldn’t happen if people are limited to legacy payment systems.” added Balkind.

The Sarapis Foundation helps free/libre/open-source projects, nonprofits and grassroots community groups benefits from the best practices of each other. Sarapis assists people who are dedicated to working collaboratively with their peers to share knowledge and improve the effectiveness of critical sectors of our society. Sarapis is also a leader of the Sahana Software Foundation which makes high quality information management systems for emergency preparedness, response, recovery and resilience-building accessible to all. Learn more at sarapis.org.

Vermont Resilience Lab is a Burlington, Vermont based consultancy and project management company that develops and implements custom resource management strategies to businesses, communities, and associations who are looking for innovative and proven ways to navigate the new economy. Since 2008, Vermont Resilience Lab has consistently helped local businesses turn their extra capacity into purchasing power through an online, open-source platform developed in-house and run as the Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility Marketplace. The Marketplace has begun transitioning to cooperative ownership as the soon to be launched, Cooperative Trade Exchange of New England. Vermont Resilience Lab was founded by award-winning social entrepreneur Amy Kirschner. For more information or to join the Marketplace, visit www.vbsrmarket.com.

OSCurrency is a user-driven, open source platform for producing mutual credit marketplaces that help communities and cooperatives build their own local economies and connect with other mutual credit economies. Since 2007, open source activists, developers, community and business leaders have worked collaboratively to build a codebase that allows communities and cooperatives to build their own economies based on the principles of mutual credit. Currently, there are OSCurrency applications being used in business trade networks and time banks internationally. The OSCurrency network overview is at http://www.oscurrency.org and contributions can be made via Open Collective at https://opencollective.com/oscurrency.